More wins for The Wedding Party but no local distribution
Actors Josh Lawson and Isabel Lucas have been named Best Hollywood Newcomers at the Beverly Hills Film, TV and New Media Festival for their roles in an Australian film which is yet to get distribution two years after being made.
Despite gaining recognition at a number of festivals including picking up the Melbourne International Film Festival audience award, it now looks like The Wedding Party will not get a release this year.
Directed by Amanda Jane and produced by Nicole Minchin, The Wedding Party opened MIFF last year.
In late May, Minchin told Encore: “We are looking forward to a local release in the second half of this year with an announcement in the coming weeks.”
Why doe the film funding bodies spend millions of dollars makign films and then spend nothing four walling them in cinemas so that audiences have an opportunity to see them? I haven’t seen ‘The Wedding Party’ but I have seen ‘Caught Inside’ – another Aussie film that deserves to be seen and which would excite a certain type of audience (its a thriller) if only audiences were given a chance to see them. Bravo makers of ‘Caught Inside’. Hope the film does well for you. And for the makers of ‘The Wedding Party’ also.
erm, didn’t win the audience award at MIFF. ‘Boy’ did.
was certainly opening night, though.
Thanks for alerting us, Paul. Now amended.
Cheers,
Tim – Encore
hmm.. trailers with no dialogue.
I’ve seen it. Great movie. Can’t understand why Australian audiences can’t see and yet it’s winning all these overseas awards!!
I keep saying this…distribution…it’s the thing that matters. Unless distributors and exhibitors come on board to support local film makers we will get nowhere. It’s the one thing that we need help with more than anything else. The government bodies which support film need to recognise this and do something constructive about it. How hard would it be for them to act as a go between to hook up film makers with reps from the distributors so people could talk and discuss projects?
The Wedding Party was most popular AUSTRALIAN film at MIFF as it says on their website. It was 7th overall.
Too easy to blame distributors.
They might have had a look at “Wedding” and thought “we can’t sell this.”
Local filmmakers don’t always make it easy for them.
Hardly ever…
All the more reason why someone (Film Vic, etc) should make it easy for film makers to connect with distributors from the outset…how else can film makers find out from the horse’s mouth what a distributor is looking for?
I agree with Adrian Sherlock. Distribution, distribution, distribution. That’s the huge, seemingly insurmountable bottleneck.
I don’t know if Sherlock is talking about Australia, but it’s very true here in the U.S.
I wish there was a distribution system for independent films and for foreign films.
Here’s a sad example: I live near Melbourne, Florida. I didn’t go to the festival, It was badly advertised.
Another example: Near and around Melbourne, there are probably a dozen or more movie theaters. Not one of them is showing The Artist, which may be on its way to winning the Academy Award and BAFTA, also. I think it has just won the Golden Globe award for comedy and musical.
That is a glaring example of how bad the distribution system is here in the U.S.